Google and Apple get a “D”

In its latest Sustainability
report British research organization EIRIS rated 2,063 international
companies on sustainability and ethics. The companies were evaluated in terms
of their social and environmental performance, organization, labor issues and
other factors. As a result, each company received a grade: A, B, C, D, or E. Guess
who got an “A”!

The highest rating went to German sportswear producer Puma for their high environmental performance
and labor standards. Among other top-rated organizations were Philips Electronics and a bunch of European
pharmaceutical companies, which work in the healthcare sector that should be
socially beneficial by default.

As for those who failed EIRIS’s sustainability test, some
results were quite surprising. While the “E”s were pretty much reserved for oil
and gas companies, more common “D”s were given to giants like Apple, Google and McDonald’s. It’s
interesting that both BP and Shell,
despite their non-environment-friendly industry, scored much higher than Apple and Google. Here’s an extract from the sustainability analysis
of the world’s top 50 companies:

Company

Country

Grade

Puma

Germany

A

Philips

Netherlands

A

BP

UK

B

Shell

UK

B

Microsoft

USA

C

IBM

USA

C

Proctor and Gamble

USA

C

AT&T

USA

C

Coca-Cola

USA

C

Samsung

Korea

C

Apple

USA

D

Google

USA

D

McDonald’s

USA

D

According to the report, Apple got its shameful
grade due to issues with labor coming from countries where human rights are at
risk. As for the low grade of the global search leader, EIRIS doesn’t mention the reasons. So
I wonder what Google is
doing wrong. Do you know?